1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of enterprise external and internal network communications and pertains particularly to tools and software for enabling categorization and management of human and workflow resources, as well as search systems.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
With the advent of networking, companies and organizations have depended on software-based communications and research tools to manage enterprise activities and to attempt to improve workforce performance; streamline workflow; and improve quality of service. Many modern network-supported communication and collaboration tools include Email Applications, Instant Messaging Applications, File Sharing Applications, Network Collaboration Software, Time Management Applications, Central Directory Applications, Network Telephony Applications and a wide array of others. Many of these tools are often packaged together as Customer Relations Management (CRM), Internal Relations Management (IRM), and Business-to-Business (B2B) Enterprise Solutions. These solutions are meant to improve performance of the enterprise as a whole.
In an enterprise, it is critical that internal data required to enable task performance is easy to find, and once found, immediately accessible to those who need it. Several challenges exist for a large enterprise related to human task performance, internal interaction and data retention, and database management as it relates to workflow within the enterprise. In many large enterprises, a class of workers known as knowledge workers is typically responsible for much of the data management and how that data may be accessed and used, as well as how data is stored and maintained within the enterprise data stores. It is important that critical data has integrity, is reliable, and can be swiftly accessed and improved upon by updating and adding new relevant data.
In many enterprises workers who must generate workflow spend inordinate amounts of time trying to locate relevant information within the enterprise that may be critical to their tasks. In many cases they must order data from an authorized knowledge worker and must wait until the knowledge worker can accommodate the request. More particularly, there is typically no smooth, incoming flow of task relevant data to the worker. If the worker has an internal search tool, often much irrelevant data is included in a search result with a small portion of relevant information that the worker must drill down to.
Another problem that exists with larger enterprises is that knowledge of human resources, employee skills, ongoing projects, product data, service data, customer data, and so on is not typically available across the divisions of the enterprise compartments. For example, a worker in sales management may not be familiar with the personnel and expertise of those personnel working in the manufacturing arm of the same enterprise. Much input may be required of the worker to search out and disseminate this type of data if authorized to receive it.
There are existing applications that attempt to centrally locate employee information, database resources, and other such information so that an employee, by logging into a system using a desktop application may access information and other resources during the performance of workflow. A problem with this approach is that it is standardized in format, rigid in protocol, and often-complex procedures (almost rituals) are required to actually gain access to relevant information. Often the data, once accessed, is old and out of date, no longer relevant, or otherwise not validated as useful or the right data to incorporate into the workflow. Data aggregation and updating of the system databases with relevant data does not occur while the workflow progresses but often at some later time, meaning that the most recent data is not always available.
Often as well relevant data needs to be associated with, or provided in a way to complement other relevant data. Sometimes more abstract data is required in order to enable the worker to understand the data he or she has accessed. A supervisor or a more knowledgeable worker may not be immediately available to the worker to help tie the meaning of the data sets together. Enterprise personnel are constantly struggling with these types of frustrations under existing information-access and data management systems.
In the art at the time of the present application a search utility or tool accepts search criteria, and searches a known and limited body of data. For example, Google, and most other commercially-available search applications search the Internet network, returning URLs that are the addresses of websites where the search criteria is found. Similarly, enterprises, that is, a company that may have an internal intranet, may have a search capability for searching data repositories within the enterprise. This may be functional even if the enterprise may have multiple sites, some of which may be in different counties and on different continents.
There is, within an enterprise environment, a considerable motivation to keep sensitive information inside the enterprise, and it is typically not available that a person or agent outside the enterprise may be able to search information inside the enterprise. Still, it is highly desirable that a worker associated with an enterprise be able to quickly and efficiently collect as much information (intelligence) as possible when acting and deciding issues on behalf of the enterprise.
What is clearly needed, therefore, are systems and methods that make it possible for a worker in an enterprise to search not only data stored or otherwise accessible inside the protective cocoon of the enterprise, but in the same act, that is, by the same click in a search function, to search data repositories outside the enterprise, and to preferably keep the returns associated with inside/outside source.